In air freighting, goods or luggage are often loaded in freight containers, so called ULD (Unit Loading Device). Thereby are often various types of transporting aids employed for assisting the airport personnel in loading and unloading goods in the freight containers.
One type of a transporting aid is disclosed in WO2015/037987. This transporting aid comprises a vertical beam which is movable along a conveyor. An arm extends horizontally from the beam and on the end of the arm there is a plate for supporting pieces of luggage that are to be loaded or unloaded from a container. The horizontal arm may be raised or lowered on the vertical beam and also pivoted about the vertical beam to place the support plate in position for loading or unloading luggage.
A drawback with the transporting aid of WO2015/037987 is that the vertical beam occupies space in the loading/unloading area around the container. This limits the room available to the luggage handling personnel for moving around which in turn has a negative impact on the efficiency of the loading/unloading process. The vertical beam may also constitute an obstacle and a collision risk to motorized towing vehicles that operate in the area around the container.
Another type of transporting aid is an industrial robot which may be controlled from a remote location, for example as shown in EP0841297. However, in comparison with manual transporting aids the use of robots suffers from several drawbacks. For example, robot based systems are complex and demands complicated and expensive control equipment. Moreover, it is difficult to control a robot to tightly pack luggage of various size and shape in a freight container.
US20090283490 show a lifting aid that comprises a linkage for lifting object in a straight vertical direction. US20090283490 is not suitable for loading containers that needs to be accessed from the side, such as freight containers.
Thus, it is and object of the present disclosure to provide an improved transport arm for transporting object which solves at least one of the problems in the prior art. In particular it is an object of the present disclosure to provide a flexible transport arm which occupies little space. Moreover, it is an object of the present disclosure to provide a transport arm which may be positioned above a luggage conveyor.